Alumnae Achievement Awards
2001

Frances Daly Fergusson ’65College President
Professor

Credit:Will Faller

Frances
Daly Fergusson ’65 is President and Professor of Art
at Vassar College. In 1996, she led Vassar to the
successful completion of a $206 million fundraising
campaign, the largest for a liberal arts college
at that time. President Fergusson was instrumental
in the creation of Vassar's "Exploring Transfer" program,
designed to identify and help gifted community
college students transfer to elite colleges across
the country. She has also overseen the addition
of several important buildings on the Vassar campus,
including the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, the
Class of 1951 Observatory, the Martha Rivers and
E. Bronson Ingram Library, and a new athletic center.

Before beginning her term
as Vassar's president in 1986, Fergusson was provost
and vice president
for academic affairs at Bucknell University and
assistant chancellor at the University of Massachusetts,
Boston. With a Ph.D. in art history from Harvard
University, Fergusson is also a highly regarded
art history professor. She has taught at Newton
College/Boston College, University of Massachusetts,
Boston, Bucknell University, and Vassar College.

In 1999, she was honored
by Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences with its
Centennial Medal. Fergusson has also been elected
an honorary
fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and
she received the Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill Award
for Humanitarian Service in 1998. Among her
many leading volunteer roles, Fergusson serves on
the
Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation and
has been chair of the Board of Trustees of the Mayo
Foundation since 1998.

For more information about the Alumnae
Achievement Awards, please contact us by email at specialprograms@alum.wellesley.edu or
call the Alumnae Association at 781-283-2331.